Interpreting warnings and river heights
Flood Warnings and River Height Bulletins contain observed river heights for a selection of the river height monitoring locations. The time at which the river reading has been taken is given together with its tendency (e.g. rising, falling, steady or at its peak). The Flood Warnings may also contain predictions in the form of minor, moderate or major flooding for a period in the future. River Height Bulletins also give the height above or below the road bridge or causeway for each river station located near a road crossing.
One of the simplest ways of understanding what the actual or predicted river height means is to compare the height given in the Warning or Bulletin with the height of previous floods at that location.
The table below summarises the flood history of the Johnstone River catchment - it contains the flood gauge heights of the highest know floods recorded at selected river height locations, together with heights of recent floods.
| River height station |
Highest Recorded Flood (in metres) |
Mar 1967 |
Apr 1982 |
Feb 1986 |
Mar 1997 |
Feb 1999 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nerada | Feb 1999 |
11.15 | 10.30 | 11.15 | |||
| Tung Oil | Feb 1999 |
10.81 | 10.33 | 10.19 | 10.17 | 9.34 | 10.81 |
| Corsis | Mar 1997 |
6.68 | 6.68 | 6.68 | |||
| Central Mill | Mar 1967 |
11.13* | 11.13* | 8.10 | 10.84 | 9.85 | 9.70 |
| Innisfail | - 1913 |
8.09* | 6.25* | 5.81* | 6.42* | 5.85 | 6.37 |
All heights are in metres on flood gauges.
[*] These heights are taken at old gauge sites and may
not relate to flood levels from existing gauges sites.
